Karel Luyben appointed National Coordinator for Open Science

February 12th, 2018

Today, the steering group of the National Platform Open Science appointed former Delft University of Technology Rector Karel Luyben as the National Coordinator for Open Science. In this newly created role, Luyben will work to achieve the Netherlands' open science ambitions and to strengthen the country's pioneering role in this field. This will benefit everyone. Open access to publications, for example, allows lecturers to read up on the most recent developments in their field and to incorporate them into their courses. Furthermore, it allows doctors and nurses to apply the latest medical methods for better care.

Open science is about sharing research data and making scientific publications (digitally) available to a large audience. Publicly funded research must be publicly accessible. Dutch Minister of Science Van Engelshoven sees open science as an important priority of the Coalition Agreement.

The Netherlands is known as a pioneer in this field in Europe. This also became apparent during the Netherlands' EU presidency in 2016. They helped introduce the ambitions that by 2020 all scientific articles should be freely accessible, research data is to be optimally available for reuse and researchers must be valued and rewarded for sharing research data and results.

The Netherlands feels that open science should be encouraged and supported and has documented these ambitions in its National Plan Open Science, which was presented to the National Platform Open Science exactly one year ago today. A large number of organisations with a stake in this development are working together on this platform. Since its launch one year ago, the percentage of open-access publications has gone up and the sharing of research data has soared. The Netherlands has also taken the lead to create a European platform together with Germany and France to make all this possible: the GO FAIR initiative.

To interconnect the various Platform activities and monitor progress, it was decided to appoint a National Coordinator for Open Science. Today it was announced that Karel Luyben will be filling this position. He was also given the specific task to make 'the scientist's voice' heard on the Platform. Karel Luyben was appointed by the National Platform Open Science, in which organisations such as VSNU, KNAW, NWO, VH, PNN, KB, SURF, NFU, ZonMW and GO-FAIR have joined forces.

Minister Van Engelshoven supports the appointment: "I am very pleased with this decision. Luyben is no stranger to the European networks and has a proven track record in the field of open science. I feel he has the expertise to set in motion and interconnect the national and international open science policies."